


what happened to the soul you used to be

by peppermintcas



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Surrealism, frank discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 03:18:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10631037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peppermintcas/pseuds/peppermintcas
Summary: Hannah watches him from the front door, leaning against the siding, her expression unreadable.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lightmoon_LightingTheWay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightmoon_LightingTheWay/gifts).



> tw: there's a scene where clay imagines taking pills to commit suicide.
> 
> alright ok this is a Weird Fic bc i wrote it after seeing exactly 2.5 episodes - episodes 1, 6, and 7, specifically - so it's not. quite canon compliant but almost. take it as you will.

Tony stares wordlessly at him.

Clay swallows. Looks down. When he looks up again, Tony is talking: "Am I, like, the only person you talk to? That's kinda sad, dude. You're so sad. You're so pathetic - "

He blinks.

"Clay," Tony says, looking concerned. "Dude, are you okay?"

"What?" Clay asks. "No, yeah, I'm fine."

"You're very much not, actually," Tony says. "You've been blanking out a lot, dude. Like at the basketball game. People are starting to notice." He tilts his head. "Is it the tapes?"

"Of course it's the tapes," Clay snaps. "What else would it fucking - yes, of course."

Tony raises an eyebrow. "And when you're not spacing out, you're snapping."

_Of course I'm fucking snapping, I'm seeing a fucking dead girl everywhere -_

"Leave me alone, Tony," Clay says.

"Hannah gave that second set to me for a reason."

"Yeah," Clay says flatly. "To blackmail us."

"I interpreted it as looking after you guys," Tony says, slow and deliberate. "You all are dangerous, dangerous fuckers. Look what you did to Hannah. It's just not safe - "

Clay blinks.

"I said," Tony says, now looking faintly amused, "You all could be - taking these the wrong way, after all, and as much as Hannah lays blame, she wouldn't want to see you guys off yourselves too."

Clay shoulders his backpack. "Thanks for the concern," he says shortly, and pushes his way past.

/

She's in his chemistry class that afternoon. Her eyes bore holes into his back.

"Why didn't you save me?" she asks.

It's the first time she's talked to him. Her voice is faint, but it's _her_. Unmistakably.

"Clay, you could have saved me. You could have. Why didn't you - "

" - do the homework? Hello?" Mr. Gerard leans down in front of him.

Clay blinks. Scrambles for his journal.

/

_Clay._

He keeps his eyes closed, for fear of who's going to be standing in his bedroom if he looks.

/

"I'm seeing her everywhere," Clay says experimentally to the mirror.

Mirror-Clay raises an eyebrow and replies, "Sounds schizophrenic, dude. Maybe keep that to yourself."

Clay - regular Clay, not mirror Clay - blinks.

He backs out of the bathroom fast and goes to lie down.

/

He accepts rides home from Tony every once in a while, and they can usually manage small talk. Now, though, he grips his backpack in his lap and stares determinedly out the window and answers Tony's remarks with stiff, one-word answers. Old-school rock plays between them.

"You do that English paper?"

"Yup."

"There's a rough draft due tomorrow, isn't there? I should get started."

"Probably."

"Clay," Tony says again, and Clay starts. He gets the feeling that Tony's been repeating his name for a while.

"What?" he says, still looking outside.

Tony brakes at a red light and looks over at him. "You checked out on me again, dude. You sure you don't wanna talk about it?"

Clay's temper, so frayed and close to the surface these days, bubbles over once again. "Oh yeah, sure," he snaps. "Just fucking - pour it out to the counselor that Hannah sent out her suicide note and ever since I've been seeing her everywhere, been having - fucking hallucinations or some shit, I don't even know - " He takes a breath that's only a little hysterical. "People keep saying weird shit that turns out to be imaginary - _I_ keep saying weird shit that turns out to be imaginary - "

Tony stares at him. The light turns green.

Clay blinks. And then blinks again, but Tony's still looking at him, wide-eyed, so he guesses it wasn't his mind fucking up on him. "Pull over," he says tiredly, and rests his head against the window.

Tony obliges. "You..." he starts, and then clearly can't think of anything to say.

"I keep seeing her everywhere, man," Clay says. "Sitting in Monet's, in class. Walking on the street. In the middle of the basketball court." He takes a shuddery breath. "And I think I'm going crazy or something. God. I keep seeing - " He can't think of another way to say it. "Weird shit."

Tony's silent. "Like what?" he asks finally.

"I keep imagining you, like, reading me for filth. Just straight up insulting me," Clay says, honestly. He laughs a little at the absurdity of it. "You and everyone else, I guess. But you. A lot."

"Uh," Tony says. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel. "I would... never?"

"I know you wouldn't," Clay says.

Silence.

"Clay," Tony begins, at the same time that Clay blurts out, "I should go, I can take the bus."

Tony shakes his head. "No, I'll drive you, it's okay."

Clay sits back, resigned, as Tony puts the car into drive and pulls into the road again.

/

"You can talk to me again," Tony says. "If it gets - out of control."

"What are you, my therapist?" Clay asks. "Yeah, sure, okay."

"I'm serious."

"I know."

They look at each other. Tony's gaze is light, but no less piercing for it.

"I'll see you, Jensen," he says, and drives away.

/

She watches him from where she's sitting on his bed. "You shouldn't be seeing me," she says, her voice tinny. She sounds like she does on the tapes.

"No," Clay agrees. He closes his eyes and taps his pencil on his book. _Anti-derivative of x to the third -_

"Why?" she asks.

"Why what?"

"Why do you see me," she clarifies.

"I miss you," he says.

"Why?"

"I think I loved you in real life."

"Why?"

Her voice is getting tinnier, fainter, like a cassette tape rewound too many times.

"I dunno," he says. "Why does anyone love anything?"

"Good question," Hannah whispers, and when he looks over she smiles at him, genuine and wistful.

He blinks.

She's gone.

/

"Is she a ghost?" Clay asks. "Or am I hallucinating?"

Mirror-Clay replies, "Spit out your damn toothpaste."

/

"She talked to me again," Clay says.

"Again?" Tony asks, slightly incredulous, and then recovers. "Was it like - did you respond?"

"Yeah."

"You - probably shouldn't have."

"Probably."

"Is it like - a ghost? Or is it you?"

"I have no clue," Clay says, honestly. "I have no fucking clue."

/

"You should let me go," Hannah says conversationally, like they used to talk at the movie theater, like they used to talk in class. Casual. Easy.

He has no idea how she does it. Every word he says to her is full of weight.

"It's the healthy option," she says.

"What would you know about healthy options," Clay mutters. His leg is jittering up and down, up and down. He's got a math test tomorrow and he can't fail it. When it's been silent for a couple seconds, he glances up; she's frowning at him. "I didn't mean - sorry." _I'm apologizing to a hallucination._

She studies him. "No, you're not," she says decisively, and slides off his bed and goes into the hall, leaving his door ajar.

/

He pours out the Advil into his cupped palm: three, four, five, six. Did Hannah consider these, before she settled on razors? They're so small and round and seemingly harmless.

"Didn't take you for a pills kinda person," Mirror-Clay says.

"Yeah, well," Clay mutters. He rolls them around in his palm. _Desperate times_ , he thinks.

"If anything," Mirror-Clay continues, "I thought you'd take after Hannah. Y'know, razors."

"Fuck you," Clay says. His mind is very clear.

He takes a deep breath and downs the pills, fast, swallows them all in one go and closes his eyes and tips his head back and -

He blinks.

He pours the pills back into the bottle with a faint clatter, splashes water on his face, and goes to school.

/

"I think I need to talk to you," Clay says, avoiding Tony's knowing eyes.

"Sure," Tony says easily. "After school?"

"No," Clay says. He's been at school for four periods and he already knows he can't stick it out for the rest of the day; he keeps feeling the pills hitting the back of his throat. "Now. I can't - " He meets Tony's gaze. He looks worried, now. "I don't think I can do this."

Tony glances around to make sure no one's looking - Clay stares back down at his feet - and looks back at him. "Alright," he says quietly. "Alright. You good, Clay?"

How does he tell him? How does he describe anything he's been seeing these past few days? Ghosts and hallucinations haunting his every step, not letting him out of their clutches; the tapes, winding him further and further into Hannah's world. He doesn't know what's real. Only that Tony is here, and solid, and offered him help, once, offered to make it better.

"No," he says.

"That's fair," Tony says grimly, and places a hand on his back and guides him towards the parking lot.

/

"You said Hannah gave you that second set so you could look out for us," Clay says, staring fixedly at his backpack.

"Hm," Hannah says, from the backseat. "An interesting interpretation. Well, I'm not against it."

"Jesus," Clay says, forgetting about Tony. He casts a glance into the backseat. It's different, alone in his room, knowing he's going crazy but not quite caring. In the car with Tony it's - he's -

"Clay," Tony says.

Hannah's gone.

"What?" he asks.

"Who..." Tony glances backwards too, but doesn't see anyone. Obviously. His jaw tightens. "Clay..."

"I know, okay," Clay says heatedly. "I know how it sounds, how it looks. I'm going fucking crazy. This morning, I hallucinated taking, like, six Advil."

"I don't suppose you took them for painkilling purposes," Tony says, dryly.

Clay lets out a short, miserable laugh. "Well, define painkilling. Metaphorically? Yes."

"Do you need to get help?" Tony asks, his eyes fixed on the road.

 _Like Hannah didn't,_ he doesn't add, but it's there, lingering, drifting out the window.

"Fuck you," she says lazily.

Clay ignores her. "I don't think so," he says. "What would I tell them? I can't say anything about the tapes."

"If it ends up killing you?" Tony takes a hard left, his jaw tight. "I'd fuckin' tell 'em myself."

"Thanks, I guess," Clay says.

"Are you at risk?" Tony asks, pulling into - somewhere. "Are these hallucinations dangerous?"

"No," Clay says. "I just blank out, that's all."

"Are you suicidal?"

Clay thinks about it.

"Clay?"

"I..." He squints at the sun. "Who the fuck knows, Tony?"

"You would, preferably," Tony tells him. His eyes soften. "Listen. If you are - I don't know, man - you need to see someone. Don't therapists have to keep shit confidential?"

"Don't they have to give up information if it relates to an ongoing case?" Clay asks. "The lawsuit."

"I don't know, man," Tony says again. "Here. Out."

Clay obliges. They're on a cliff, overlooking the city. "Wow," he says, despite himself.

"This is where I take my boyfriend," Tony says, looking satisfied. He goes around to the trunk and rummages around, emerges with two Cokes.

"Your boyfriend, huh?" Clay asks. "Am I special?"

Tony laughs, handing a Coke over. "Maybe, Jensen. Maybe. Scoot the fuck over, don't monopolize the hood."

Clay leans back against the car and sips the soda, feeling it fizz on the way down. It's so quiet here; he doesn't want to be the one to break the silence.

"My mom used to take me up here," Hannah says. He doesn't turn but he sees her out of the corner of his eye, sitting on the roof of the car, her legs swinging against the closed windows. "When they had the time. After the new store..." She blows out a breath.

"Is it happening?" Tony asks.

"Is what happening?" Clay asks.

"I always loved it up here," Hannah says wistfully. "Ruled it out as a suicide option, though. That cliff over there? Yeah. No guarantee that they'd find the body."

Clay shudders, cold. He puts the soda down. Breathes.

"Clay," Tony says quietly.

"Yeah," he chokes out. "It's happening. She's here."

Tony lays a hand on his shoulder. When Clay doesn't shove it away, he wraps an arm around Clay's shoulders and pulls him in, against his chest. "Breathe, Jensen," he says. "Breathe."

"I upset you," Hannah observes.

 _No shit,_ he thinks fiercely.

"Ah," she says, oddly dispirited. "I see."

Clay wraps his arms around Tony and buries his face in his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Hannah says quietly, and when he looks up again, blinking through blurred tears, she's gone.

/

Tony drives him back to his house, later. Climbs out of the car. "Hey," he says quietly.

"I'm good, man," Clay says.

"Okay," Tony acquiesces. He pulls Clay down, towards him, and kisses him on the cheek. "You be careful," he says.

Clay touches his cheek, puzzled. "Thanks," he says.

"No problem," Tony says. "See you tomorrow."

"Right," Clay says. "See you."

Hannah watches him from the front door, leaning against the siding, her expression unreadable.

He watches Tony's headlights fade until there's nothing but the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> thank u to melody (Lightmoon_LightingTheWay) for motivating me to finish this <3


End file.
